Nagi Ramen, Shibuya, Tokyo

I had hoped to sample every bowl of ramen in Tokyo. But time was short and the weather had turned against me. This brings me to Nagi Ramen, the one place on my list I ended up making it to. And if you only make it to one ramen shop in Tokyo, you won’t regret this one. Nagi has several locations throughout Tokyo, each shop specializing in a different soup.

Obviously I chose the Shibuya location, which specializes in pork (pork!). When you walk in you need to buy a ticket from the vending machine (if you don’t read Japanese you might have some trouble deciphering it). I chose, of course, the pork ramen (豚王). After you have your ticket you will be seated and presented with a questionnaire. This is where you can customize your bowl (I’m not sure if they have an English version, but one of the employees might be able to help). On the form you can choose the amount of oil, garlic, thickness, and heaviness of the broth, how hard you want the noodles, in addition to a number of other details. I know what I like, so I opted for a dark, thick, garlicky broth with katame (al dente) noodles.

The place is cramped and warm, but honestly who cares? This is my perfect bowl. Perfect! The broth is creamy, porky, thick, completely delightful. The meat is tender and fatty and the noodles are firm. If, like me, your ramen preferences lean towards cloudy bowls of porky heaven, Nagi is not to be missed.